


the two sided world end

by nannerlinthejungle



Category: 14th Century CE RPF, 15th Century CE RPF, Henry V - Shakespeare, Henry VI - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - 21st Century, Multi, mary de bohun is alive bUT AT WHAT COST
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28075839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nannerlinthejungle/pseuds/nannerlinthejungle
Summary: //; 2018 : Henry met Margaret at a party in Hell's Kitchen during one of his turbulent days when he can't seem to find purpose in his life. So lucky they are that they make instant bond and over the course of the next tree months, an enthralled Henry find a new motivation in Margaret for him to finally finish his debut novel.//; 1961: Catherine has been living in Paris while her husband, Harry, struggles to move their whole life from London in Catherine's favour. Lonely, Catherine begins to write a new book to keep herself occupied, except that Harry doesn't think it's the right book to write.
Relationships: Catherine de Valois Queen of England/Henry V of England, Henry VI/Marguerite d'Anjou | Henry VI/Margaret of Anjou
Comments: 1
Kudos: 56





	1. turn back the pendulum

[ **2018.** ](https://open.spotify.com/album/4tEj5Vtog4QUL7PdLHqyGN)

Looking back, none of these would happen if he didn't take the bus. When he entered this crowded large living room where candlelit faces beamed with laughter and premonition, he didn't expect anything would happen to him other the endless wandering from room to room, from the classic sepia etching on the wall by the bathroom where a swinging door opened to a long corridor to private areas not intended for guests but took another turn toward the hallway and then, by miracle, led back into the same living room where more people had gathered. He thought, after the initial greeting with his friend's friend: _She couldn't make it, so I came instead, I think we were in Lit Hum together?_ \- he'd find a quiet spot and stay there until no one cared if he left early.

That, of course didn't last long once someone put out a hand and said, "You look lost."

"You look familiar." Henry replied, dumbstruck. He stumbled from one thing to the other so far but here he stood frozen and speechless, couldn't think of anything. Didn't most people look lost at parties? Not her, apparently. She owned her space, clear drink in her hand, back against false chamfered pillar with a Corinthian-style topstone. Meanwhile Henry was almost slouching against the wall.

"Maybe you saw me perform." She shrugged. "Margaret. Oboe."

"Yes?" Henry was too distracted, by the name, by the voile-thin crimson shirt which she wore unbuttoned to her breastbone, by the swell of skin as smooth and forbidding as the diamond stud on her thin necklace, by the transition from her name to a name of an instrument. _Margaret. Oboe._ Who introduced themselves like that? "I'm Henry." He finally said.

"I see." Margaret nodded. Soon, but not soon enough did Henry realised the many meaning of those two words. He would heard those words many, many times to come. Do not tell. "You're not their friend." She said it as if it was the most obvious thing. Then, it hit Henry that _their_ in her sentence meant his friend's friend's _friends._ This was the insular world of classical music, professionals who talked about their recitals and Broadway orchestra performances. Later, soon enough, Henry would hear more about this world from one of their _friend_ , Margaret.

"I know they guy who was supposed to be the plus one."

"I see." There she went again. "I'm going to get a refill." Margaret continued, and she didn't even have to make any gesturing with her now empty glass, didn't try to be convincing like people who desperately tried to make excuse to leave a conversation. Henry nodded, trying not to show a sudden jolt in his stomach that ached for Margaret to at least say goodbye. Was he really that boring? Three steps away, she turned her slightly, one of her brow arched in mockery and middling disbelief. "That was an invitation, Henry."

A pensive okay was all Henry could offer in that moment. She wanted him to follow her. Henry thought, as there was another jolt in his stomach: _she wants me to follow._

Once Henry followed her from behind, Margaret casually put her empty glass on the table she passed on her way. She was going to the different direction from where the open bar was, but Henry didn't say anything until they proceeded downstairs. "We're leaving."

"Ding! Ding! Points for Henry." She gave Henry her hand again. "Come on, walk-and-talk. I'm not keeping you, am I?" Henry shook his head, he felt their palms caress, sensing all along that there was as much good fellowship as unkindled passion in this tireless rubbing of fingers.

"Where are we going?"

"Rudy's." Henry didn't know if Margaret meant a place belonging to someone named Ruby, or something else. "Sorta." She shrugged at her own answer. "My friends are better, trust me." Yes, he trusted her, alright.

Another pensive _okay_ and then: "So, you're an oboist." He tried to keep the conversation going, because he felt like he was supposed to ask the questions, to care about what a pretty young woman have to say about herself. "You're with an orchestra, or something?"

"I perform here and there." She shrugged, implying that she was sparing Henry from the technical detail. She was clearly smarter and more experienced than him so she'd rather dumb it down than to give Henry a course he didn't ask about: _actually, I am x and y, and it's called z and az_. Not condescending, huh? "Tutoring too." She added, her nonchalance turned into smirk when she noticed that Henry looked confused. "I know, what kind of shitty parents give their children oboe lesson, right?" Again she spoke these words with such mournful candor and humility that she seemed to own up to a weakness in herself, which she had tried but failed to overcome. Henry almost said that it wasn't the idea of teaching oboe that surprised him, but rather because he was truly thinking about what exactly oboe was. Wasn't it some type of clarinet? "What's up with you, then?" Margaret beat Henry's pace by asking question before he could.

"I went to college a little bit."  
"Didn't like it?"

"Hated it." His answer was unnecessarily sharp. "It's the whole self-pity and counter-blaming while I was the one who pick the wrong major. Or wrong school. I don't know."

"I see." Her trademark words with him. "That sucks. What do you do then?" She broke in, as though nipping both Henry's situation and the rising awkwardness of talking about failures. She had uttered _what do you do then?_ so abruptly that Henry felt she did indeed want him to notice she was changing topics.

Henry smiled at the maneuver. "Nothing." She caught his smile and stared at him uneasily, as if Henry had fainted and was just coming to.

"Nothing _nothing_?"  
"Not nothing _nothing_ , I'm a waiter."

"I see." _Margaret. Oboe. I see you, Henry. Nothing._ "Here's Rudy's."Margaret pointed at a bar with giant cartoonish pig in front of it. She told Henry that it was her favourite place to eat in Hell's Kitchen. They were in Hell's Kitchen? He hadn't been in this city long enough to remember all the neighbourhoods. He didn't even technically live in this side of New York City. With her finger still pointing to the air, Margaret made a one swift one hundred-and eighty degree turn, and now her finger was pointing at the apartment building exactly across Rudy's. "We're going upstairs. What did you want to do?" Again with acknowledging and maneuvering.

"In college? I don't know."

Henry was half-expecting another _I see_ from Margaret but it never came. As Margaret walked ahead, Henry looked up. He heard faint noises of people practicing violin scales, trumpet études, and clarinet melodies in the inexpensive apartment across the bar. Henry followed Margaret inside the foyer of a narrow tenement. The front door buzzed open; they passed into a hall's murky light, then out a fire escape exit to a barren airshaft. A bulb lit up an old paint-blistered door. Music was throbbing from behind it.

"It's just me, Suffolk!" Margaret shouted, punching the mechanical doorbell. One, two, three deadbolts unlocked. The door creaked open and music blasted out.

A window shot open up above. "Jesus fucking Christ, will you shut the fuck up?" A Gristede's bag sailed out the window over their heads, just missing Henry but spraying coffee grounds everywhere else.

A scruffy man in a stained yellow T-shirt pulled them inside, barricading the door with a five-foot pole lock anchored to the floor. Two Virgin Mary candles from a local bodega flickered in the darkness to the beat of music pulsing from huge old Klipsch speakers. Henry could smell, faintly, gas leaking from somewhere and mildew creeping across the gray walls. Through the metal accordion grate on the windows, mountains of garbage accumulated in the shaft. His heart started beating faster.

"Henry,"  
"Yes, Margaret?"  
"You want to do lines?"

Before Henry could registered Margaret's question, she was already gone. Three men on Henry's right howled with laughter on the frayed brown sofa. "Dude, I'll never get over him fucking his sister." One of them choked on his words. "It's so out."

The other, the one who opened the door just shrugged and pulled on the fat joint that was making its rounds.

"Yeah, I know. Now their kid's fucking his aunt," the third man chimed in, pushing his stringy blond bangs aside to see the knobs on a large vacuum tube amplifier. "Listen to this riff. Man, you're not gonna believe." The record blared, and they were silent for a moment.

The man named Suffolk sighed during a lull in the music. "Those cats could really play."

Turning to opposite direction, Henry watched Margaret bend over the desk to snort cocaine through a straw. He'd never done coke, but he was feeling pressured to try too. The blond man from the sofa approached Margaret and drummed his fingers on the table, regarding Henry suspiciously. Suddenly, his attention shifted to Suffolk, who sprang back to the couch to roll a crisp $100 bill into a tube.

"Suffolk is chasing the dragon, man," The blond man sputtered. "He's totally chasing that shit." He doubled over with laughter, gasping for breath. Confused, Margaret looked at Suffolk and cocked her head, the straw dangling between her fingers.

"You know how it is, man: trying to stay up, get the buzz back, you gotta do more blow. Gotta chase the dragon," said Suffolk almost defensively, cutting two lines of coke on the coffee table. He leaned over with his $100 tube, and the lines disappeared. "I meant the real dragon." Suffolk then chortled, knocking a tin of Szechuan noodles onto the rug. "The one in the opera. It's _Siegfried_ , man. The giant turns into a dragon. Guards the trolls' gold. Shit. People think _Star Wars_ invented this fucking stuff." An operatic bass wailed through the record's pops and scratches.

"Goddam, sounds like he's coming," said the blond man, sneezing violently. "Wagner's so out. What's with those Valkyries?" The words tumbled out, and he choked on his own laughter. "Pointy, dude. Torpedo tits."

Rolling her eyes, Margaret got up and switched records, carefully slipping the first one into its faded jacket. She dropped the needle, and brass instruments played a religious tune. "Valhalla," She sighed, folding her hands reverentially. "Castle of the gods. Power. Power and glory." The windows vibrated as the music rose and fell.

From this point of conversation, Henry couldn't keep up with their classical music talk. Even so, he never expected that when people talk about classical music, it would be _like this_. He imagined the people from earlier party was representing the true culture of classical music but these drug induced people, ironically, seemed to be the ones who knew what they were really talking about. "What kind of Wagner tubas they playing, Paxman? Alexander? It's Vienna Phil: Solti, right? Damn, they're nailing it." someone was shouting over the din. He wiped his nose and then smeared back a cowlick in a seamless motion.

These guys had fire in their bellies, Henry thought. He watched Margaret handed someone $250 and tuck a Baggie of coke into her purse. Young and inexperienced, Henry wanted this in-crowd of classical musicians to accept him, somehow, but then again he was simply desperate to be accepted by any kind of social group. At twenty-four he was too scared to do coke, though, so he tried to appear nonchalant by propping his sneakers on the coffee table.

"Oooh, nice shoes, Margs. What'd you play at the Phil later? No, wait wait wait." Suffolk approached them, ogling Margaret's feet. She'd gone barefooted with her red shoes disarrayed under the stool. Margaret used another stool to put her feet on, semi tuck sitting between two stools. With a toothpick, Suffolk arranged a cocaine flower pattern on her toenail and snorted through the bill. Everyone exploded in laughter.

"I need more blow, Talbot. I got stage band rehearsal tomorrow," said Suffolk, and the man he called Talbot gave him a look. "C'mon, how much? Gimme a break. _Meistersinger_ , dude. Six hours long, man!" The intercom buzzed and Talbot guy walked to answer it. "How about _Götterdämmerung_ now, what do you think?" Suffolk turned to Margaret and she nodded, pulling a box of LPs from a ripped Associated Supermarkets paper bag. "Twilight of the gods. The end, man. Redemption. Oh, man. Beautiful. Gold. Oh, yeah, magic fire." He was savouring it.

"The gods go up in flames," bubbled Margaret. Henry didn't know how long had Margaret been looking at him but she was offering Henry her straw, with a look on her face that accepted no for an answer. Henry breathed in, hiding his nervousness, and he leaned forward with a straw on the end of a coke line. As the music grew to its climax, Henry snorted and Margaret screamed over the finale.

"Nothing like it!" she shouted. "Don't you love it when Valhalla finally crashes down?"


	2. comet, black and night

[ **1961.** ](https://open.spotify.com/track/7EGza7lIMjjj3ifYoodL6g)

At 4:30 p.m. precisely, Harry Lancaster drove his Pontiac through the gates of his Avenue Foch mansion. He was never late, unless he intended to be; and his watch was never wrong, unless he wanted it to be. Some people were always short of time, but Harry had all the time in the world, well, nearly all of it, and it was the _nearly_ that was the problem, and the reason why he had come to Avenue Foch. Catherine and him purchased this mansion two months ago and immediately settled into the practically furniture-less house, which meant more hassle for _him_ to gradually decorate the mansion when they could've bought an apartment instead, especially since it was only the two of them anyway. But the thought of Catherine sharing the roof with another family was concerning for Harry so he didn't have much choice.

He steered the big car up the driveway and glanced at the speedometer that told him he was travelling at precisely 10 mph. The luminous clock assured him that he was punctual and then he pulled up outside the black and white mansion, and switched off the engine. The dials fell back to zero. He heaved himself slowly out of his car, and consulted his heavy gold pocket watch: the hour hand marked four. The minute hand thirty-five past the hour. The second hand moved swiftly from forty to fifty. The fourth hand, in red, like a warning, pointed towards eleven o’clock. Henry looked up, following the direction of his watch. Sure enough, there wasn't a face at the window. He sighed, and headed towards the front door with its key dangling on his side. He wouldn't bother asking Catherine to lock the door every time he left the mansion and did it himself.

Catherine was unhappy in London and couldn't bring herself to hold down any activity that hinted of routine hours. Harry thought, she would've been okay-er here, busying herself with pathetically rustic self-employment. Although she had made a success of London, he figured Catherine didn't want to stay in that city for health reasons. She'd been hinting sign that she was thinking of leaving, though, way before everything that became the very reason of this move.

He tried to make this place a home, though, not some temporary residence. It was something large to do by himself, and to do it well demanded such observances, personal and peculiar, laughable as they often were, because they stave off that dinginess of soul that said that everything was small and grubby and nothing was really worth the effort. He got zero input from his wife even when it was precisely for her that he did all this. The first floor was for the illusion of: _look, we've settled._ Harry used basement for his studio but lately he'd been bringing pillows and blankets and spare clothing downstairs. The second floor was, formally, _their_ bedroom, which meant it was _her_ bedroom, and her office too. 

At least he tried with the first floor, in case people came to visit. Early-Catherine, not this Catherine, told Harry that dinginess was the death to a writer; confined of the mediocre and the gradual corrosion of beauty and light, the compromising and the settling, those things made good work impossible. But looking at the reality right now, filth, discomfort, hunger, cold, trauma and drama, didn't matter a bit to her. 

When Catherine was depressed, Harry now unfortunately had learned, she put on a clean shirt, which was why upstairs, the floor was covered by her clothes, sometimes not even dirty, just something that she'd wore for five hours while doing absolutely nothing but laying on her bed under the heavy blanket. Harry learned it was her way to secure order where there seemed to be none. 

And upstairs, Harry found Catherine on bed, stomach down, her head turned towards the window with cheek buried in her pillow, the room smelled of cigarettes and ash smeared all over her poor clothes on the floor where ashtray landed. There were paper trails that ran between the bedroom and her office, crumpled papers that looked like variation of handwritten half-cooked idea, and the others were something she'd typed on the typewriter but didn't satisfy her nonetheless.

Catherine wrote on recycled paper, not really because it was a cheap second but because she said it was the right thing to do, although virtue had mysteriously made it more expensive than its tree-gobbling brother. She said that if she were a publisher, she should insisted that all manuscripts came on recycled paper. Why should nature paid for art?

"Catherine," He called, his hand touched the bare exposed skin of her cold shoulder. She didn't move so Harry shook her lightly. "It's almost evening." She didn't turn, but those ever-opened eyes did move towards him. Harry had learned that it was good enough of a response at her current state. He pulled her blanket away slightly before he left to the bathroom.

Catherine, on the other hand, hadn't notice that her husband now knew precisely not to push her too far, so this minimum effort to tell her to get up was still confusing. "What is it?" It was finally her who contributed the most to her bare productivity of the day, because she followed Harry to the bathroom. "Is there something I have to do?" God forbid anyone saw Harry Lancaster's wife in this state of mess, she had to put up an act in front of anyone, right? They still hosted dinners sometimes after moving here, his and her friends came but not as often as when they lived in London. She was able to stop being a disaster for an evening in front of everyone because lying to them meant nothing to Catherine. Lying to Harry, however, that was something she was physically incapable of doing. 

And he knew. He knew why. He was there. 

"Not today, exactly, no." He answered while he was filling the tub with water. "My mother called, she wants to visit."

"When?"  
"Tuesday."

Harry should've known that Catherine's time awareness was seriously disturbed that she wouldn't know by Tuesday, he meant three days from today. He should've had said three days instead of Tuesday, but before he could paraphrase, Catherine already said something. "Don't worry, I'll behave."

Catherine contemplated to go back to bed if that was all he wanted to tell her but it was also obvious that Harry wanted her to clean herself. He wouldn't say it like a command of course, he would always make it seem like Catherine decided it on her own. Which was sweet to certain point until she realised he was treating her like a little child.

She took her clothes off, not even bothered to pick it up and toss it to laundry basket. All naked and exposed, she walked towards the tub, Harry was on the floor, his back against the tile of the tub. It seemed like he was planning to stay. Maybe to make sure she didn't purposely drown herself or something, who knew.

"Why is she coming?"  
"Kate, she doesn't know."  
"Isn't that the point? No one does."

Harry frowned at Catherine and she thought of it as though she was an inelegant equation to him; necessary but cumbersome, a bore to manipulate. She thought that she was no longer his living beauty of physical laws. When Catherine looked in the mirror she saw a woman gargoyled with grief. A stretched taunted thing. A waterspout of misery. He had poured his indifference down on her and she had let it out as dirty water. He thought she was the dirty water not himself, wasn't he? She didn't ask. She hadn't ask.

"Don't do that." She looked away, muttered through gritted teeth. She couldn't bear to see the confusion on his face when he failed to understand what did he do wrong. "Staring." She answered the question he didn't ask. "Don't, just don't."

Was it crazy to act crazy in a crazy situation? It had logic. It might even have dignity if dignity was what hallmarks the human spirit and preserved it. Catherine was not going to sink for him.

Then there was silence: Catherine in the tub, Harry outside the tub. Waiting. Waiting. She told him not to stare but she loved it when he looked at her. She missed him, and God knew he probably missed her more. Understandable, as she too missed her old self. Unfortunately, early-Catherine was gone and never to return again. Part of that woman died some time ago. 

She didn't want him to _stare_ but she wanted him to _look_. Look into her, please understand her. Even though she was in no capacity of understanding what kind of hell he was going through, yet. Look, before she drowned and then him too.

So, assuming that he was missing her too, with the water on the tub and her naked body and him staying, she reached for his face with her delicate fingers, her long nails grazed on the scar on his cheek (he never told her anything about that scar, she had no idea how he got it; Harry did have cancerous relationship with his father, though, but she would never assume her father in law as someone who was capable to hurt his children physically; yelled at them, maybe, but he wouldn't touch them). She straighten her back so she could touch him with more than the tip of her nails. He'd find her fingers on his cheek, then his chin, and she moved his head around so he'd _look_.

Now it was Catherine who _stared_. He didn't mind, Catherine had free pass on everything now. Taking it in as an invitation, Harry leaned forward and kissed her on the side of her face, then her forehead, her nose, and then down to her mouth. She felt his hand on her collarbone, and almost instinctively, like she was in a rush, Catherine took that hand, rubbing his fingers as if she wanted to make sure he still had all his five fingers, and when she spread her legs under the water she brought his hand there, but Harry aborted as soon as he knew the direction his fingers were going for.

Not only that, he pulled away his kiss and got up. As if he was going to do something so foreign, as if he was ashamed that Catherine thought he would wanted to do that. For fuck's sake, he was her _husband_. Didn't he know she too was repulsed by her own body? Did he think she wasn't feeling it?

"Come on, let's get dinner outside." He was still scrapping ideas to make this less uncomfortable by never unpacked what was wrong with them. Something awkward happened, just move on to something else and pretend nothing was wrong a moment ago.

"Can we just stay?"  
"I need you to eat something, before I leave tomorrow."  
"Already?"

Harry never confronted Catherine, this Catherine, because she had free pass in everything. Well, almost. He wouldn't protest if she didn't get up from bed, or refusing to eat when being offered to, or when she pushed him away as if he was overstepping her boundaries by simply by being a goddamn husband.

It was, however, upsetting that Catherine was so out of the world and didn't notice anything around her, that she became upset in her ignorance. "I've been in Paris for five days." Harry said quickly, defending himself. Catherine could ignore him all she wanted but she couldn't just act as if Harry wasn't making an actual effort here. The disappointment in her eyes worn down, now she was just angry that he didn't want to touch her earlier. Well, at least now they were even. Catherine had no plan to leave, Harry could go out to any restaurant by himself if he wanted. Giving up, he turned around and walk away.

She still wanted him to _look_ , though. He had been paying attentions at all the wrong things. "I'm starting again." She said, cupping the lukewarm soapy water with her palms, and she let it poured back into the tub. Harry stopped by the door and turned. It was the book. Both of them knew it was about the book she'd been trying to write ever since they came here.

Harry never said anything but it was clear that the moment he heard about the book Catherine had been writing, he didn't like it. Mind you, he was absolutely supportive of her choice in her own league but this book came at the worst time possible. Harry didn't talk about it because Catherine was in such a turbulent time of their live that he was aware this wouldn't take her time more than the bed. She'd write for one morning and then slept for the remaining of the week. Yet, Catherine knew, Harry too, that the book was not an accident. Or an experiment. Or a whim. It was a downstream force by a high wind. It was as though the book was already written, such was the speed and certainty of its being. How had this thing overtaken Catherine? She realised that she wasn't going to start a smallholding.

Catherine told Harry that she started again as if he wasn't aware of the sound of her typewriter, when he wanted to go upstairs to find some hope in Catherine but halfway through the staircases he realised it was the complete opposite of hope. He knew. He made a mistake of reading the first chapter last month, typed manuscript riddled with her handwriting. It was unlike anything she'd written before; its interests were anti-linear. It offered a complicated narrative structure disguised as a simple one. Beguilingly straightforward syntax. She wrote it so it could be read in spirals, fluid with its infinite movement.

But was it movement backwards or forwards? Was it height or depth? 

"He met a girl." Catherine continued, and that seemed to stir up some kind of interest in Harry. Less about the idea of boy met girl, but that for the first time, Catherine decided that the boy no longer alone.

"That sounds lovely." He commented, but Catherine only nodded nonchalantly. She thought about the boy in her story, how he'd been alone his whole life, desperate to be a part of something. His identity was as abstract as the wind. She made him meet a girl, a force of life so big that she could share her force to fill his life without worrying to ever miss a part for herself. It was an overused concept: boy met the girl at the party and completely fell head over heels by her presence. She wanted the cool girl to be the key to the boy's journey, from the outside, and from the inside of his own mind's maze.

That sounded lovely indeed. Yet, why did writing happiness to the boy made her heart ache even more? Not wanting to think about that now, she continued, now that Harry actually wanted to hear about it.

"She plays weird instrument like you and your harp."  
"Oh? What is it?"  
"The one you told me about. The oboe."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter wouldn't make sense as it is so here's second chapter to explain what is happening in this story.
> 
> However, get ready for a surprise on the next chapter! (:


	3. eden

[ **2018.** ](https://open.spotify.com/album/2hh4gz85zglk9YxQGEtdkJ)

"You should've given them shower sex."  
"Jesus, Margaret."

Henry didn't know how the conversation ensued, but Henry ended up telling Margaret about a book he was trying to write. Emphasized on _tyring_ because he'd been abandoning his idea for half a year now. He always did shit like that: back away when things got too confusing, or confrontational. Or when he felt something was hopelessly un-rescue-able. Margaret said she wanted fresh air and took Henry to the small terrace behind the apartment, then she proceeded to light a cigarette. Hand rolled, too, and Henry was embarrassed when he said he only ever smoke cloves. She offered it to him too, but as Henry made a motion to accept, he remembered that he'd decided to quit smoking. Margaret shrugged, a light _sorry_ escaped her mouth before it was filled with the hand-rolled cigarette. Margaret mimicked the motions of a postwar agent lighting up as they scurried through the dark, cobbled lanes of old Vienna. 

Outside, a pale silver hue hovered over the city. Margaret stood by the balustrade, moved her foot, and dreamily brushed aside some of the trash with her red shoes, then gently swept it off the ledge. Henry watched them scatter in the wind.

"Don't be suck a fucking prude." She told him when Henry seemed surprised by her suggestion to make the couple in the story have sex in the bathroom. Get the wife out of the tub and to the shower. Shower sex. Like in the movies. Henry always had trouble ingesting the meaning of that kind of intimacy.

Henry liked the gestures, though: shoes, trash, ledge, _they should have sex_ , the whole thing done distractedly, with a cigarette between her fingers.

"It's only the first chapter." Henry shrugged.

"Yes, but they're married." Margaret rolled her eyes. "Let married people bone, Henry. Don't you ever want to have the legal right to fuck someone?"

If he wasn't high right now, that question would startle his entire senses enough to make him immediately jumped off the terrace. "They've been going through... stuff." He shrugged again, giving hasty explanation.

"Okay, if you want to be a writer, you need to learn how to not say 'stuff'."  
"That's valid."

Then, Margaret looked away into the city. She looked like someone who took your pulse while looking away, counting the seconds with a faraway gaze. Henry didn't know what to do so he stared out at the same direction, hoping he'd find what Margaret was looking at. Or maybe she was just high. "You're not old, Henry." Margaret suddenly said, as if she just discovered a revelation. "Not married either." This time she strolled closer to Henry, their shoulders touching. "Why don't you write something that sells more? Like dragon and fourteen years old girl-next-door who is destined to save the world from ignorant baby boomers."

She was fabulous in sarcasm, and yet she wore it like the small pendant on her neck: it wasn't her defense mechanism, she was better than that. Sarcasm worked for her like an accessory. 

"I've never met a dragon nor that I was girl-next-door at fourteen."

Margaret snorted, thinking that Henry was making a joke when he was being absolutely literal. "But seriously, this topic is uber heavy."

"Marriage fascinates me."  
"Why miscarriage then?"  
"Can't make them parents. Don't know how to write parents."  
"I see."

Silent. More silence. Henry cursed himself for always saying things that kill a conversation. Margaret's _I see_ worked as conversation ender. It meant: _that wasn't fun, next!_ or _that wasn't fun, bye!_ and yet Henry kept it to himself, wondering how long they were going to stand like this and stare out into the dark, tracing the silent course of the light beam overhead as it were a riveting spectacle justifying their silence.

Did Margaret's _I see_ also caught the implication that Henry never had parents? Did it came out more bitter than he anticipated? It always caught him off guard how much people was incapable of being nonchalant around orphans. For Henry, that was just a bland fact: he never had parents, and there was never a gap in his memory where he ever knew another version of what his life could've been. It was unclear, see, whether he was purposely abandoned since he was an infant, or he was a missing child that had never been found, or his parents met unfortunate end. In the end, the idea of being raised in a traditional system became less and less of priority as he grew older and older. Then, until he was too old to be desirable by potential adopters. Of course there was foster care, but that wasn't the same. At least he refused to consider it a next-best-thing alternative.

He wouldn't be surprised if Margaret was just one of those people who didn't know how to react when they found out he was an orphan. What worried him was that if Margaret's _I see_ was a jab she took to her guts.

"My dad has a construction company in New Orleans, and still thrives, if that's what you're wondering." She said, unprompted, as if she could read exactly what was in his mind. "Did you always write the husband to be a musician?" She maneuvered for both of them again.

"Yes?" Henry sounded unsure. She knew the wife would be a writer, like Shirley Jackson, enigmatic and imposing, sharp and aggressive, with the kind of darkness undiscovered by others. Henry didn't want to make the husband a copy of Hyman, though, because he wanted the wife in his story to have someone better than a cheating critic.

"Do you think people really make fortune being classical musician in the 60s?"

Henry didn't know if that was a serious question of if Margaret was mocking his poor research on the matter. "They didn't?"

"They could if they're part of actual orchestra. Composer could. You could get paid for two millions for one movie." She paused, smoked her cigarette again. "Well, two millions in 2018, dunno about the 60s. Definitely still a lot of money, though."

"Aren't you in orchestra?"  
"Community orchestras don't make money, Henry."

Henry sighed. Feeling like he was going against the plot armour of his own story. Usually at this point, he'd close his laptop and give up, but something felt different this time. It felt like he needed to make an effort with it. Real effort. "I didn't really think about his career specifically."

"Well, you can always make the husband a trust fund kid."  
"I guess."  
"Make him a Lord or something, I don't know. He's English, right?"  
"Monarchy confuses me."

"I see." Okay, the conversation about the husband ended there, then. Or so what he thought, until Margaret asked again. "Why didn't go all in and make him, I don't know, an actor? Gregory Peck-type of guy?"

"Seems like that'll bring more pressure."  
"I thought you want them to suffer."  
"Why would I want them to be inherently unhappy?"  
"I don't know. You tell me that."

If Henry noticed that Margaret knew the answer to that question before Henry did, it didn't happen soon enough. So, he gave a wrong answer. Though, Henry himself wasn't aware how wrong his answer was. "Because it seems right? Writer and musician. Both are jobs for painfully scarred artists who live in their own personal agonizing bubble."

"That is dark." There was a mix of amusement and mockery in her voice, and it seemed like she was nowhere finished on teasing Henry about it, except she was interrupted by the sound of piano from the living room of the apartment. Some drunk woman was playing, Henry didn't think he saw her before. "Listen to that." Margaret said. Henry liked it when she tell him what to do without making it feel like a chore nor responsibility. "Arthur Bliss' Piano Concerto. The star spangled banner of classical music." Henry assumed it was the title of the piece that the piano woman was playing, and then followed by Margaret's impression of it. Margaret explained that the piece was composed by an Englishman (like the husband in Henry's story) who dedicated it to the American people, a grand love letter, the most romantic he ever was in life.

"Can you play it with your oboe?"  
"Why? You want to hear it?"  
"Do I have to pay?"

Margaret laughed. Henry was such an open book, and he took everything too literal. "You know, classical music is charmingly merciless, you did get that one right." Margaret had her last puff of the hand-rolled cigarette and when she was done smoking, she stubbed out her cigarette with her shoe and then just as she had done with the trash, gently swept it off the ledge. "So, are you?"

"What?"

"Painfully scarred artist who lives in his own personal agonizing bubble?" Margaret spun on the demonic image Henry had concocted to keep the conversation going between them.

"Are you?" He echoed back.

She didn't answer but Henry really wanted to know. Coming as it did from a woman like her, it struck him as too bleak, quite unbelievable. Did Margaret, with the unbuttoned shirt, single pendant, red shoes, hand-rolled cigarette, and gleaming tanned body really nurse so tragic view of life?

"Do you always want to be a classical musician?"

Margaret nodded carelessly, "It's way harder and less glamorous than I anticipated. Hey, you shouldn't keep her alone." Again, maneuver. Dodging the bullet. This time she was doing it to save herself. 

"The wife?"  
"I don't think the husband would want her to be all by herself."  
"But they're moving to another country precisely for her privacy."

Margaret stared at him. "No one wants to be truly alone, Henry." He liked the way Margaret had almost sighed at his lack of understanding about human closeness. "It's less about companion, but more of existing. On the same space." He was glad at least it would've been their ritual for Margaret to always paved the way for simplicity. "That's all."

**Author's Note:**

> Now... You didn't see this one coming, did you? (;


End file.
